What?
I heard this woman -- quiet face, quiet eyes, a swath of long red hair down her back -- say, "Are you kidding? A woman doesn't belong in the seat of a fighter pilot. We're too emotional. It's hormones really. Half the time we're having our periods, or getting them, or getting over them. Some jobs aren't for us."
I had to stop. I had to close my mouth. I had to remind myself that I'm not a violent person and that I don't believe in punching someone in the face. I said, "Okay." I said, although the words burnt my tongue as they came out, "Let me think about it."
It took me years to admit that my periods affect me emotionally and mentally. I get volatile; I eat when I'm not hungry; I don't feel like doing anything; the smallest glitch in how my day is supposed to be going makes me shut myself up in a dark room and turn into an irritable existentialist. I get nauseated in the Sartrean sense.
I don't want to be a fighter pilot. But just for argument's sake I wondered how I would do as a fighter pilot with pre-menstrual syndrome. Not well, I thought. Not well at all. I remembered how excited I was when the drug Seasonale was announced some time ago; it allows women to have only four periods every year. I didn't know the details but it sounded pretty extraordinary. I felt another revolution in the making, like the one brought about by the birth-control pill.
But something disturbs me about all this: it's that so much of our lives are controled by biology, that our minds have to fight our bodies in order for us (I mean women) to make progress in the world, to be truly free in it. A fallacy lurks here, though. There isn't only one kind of freedom to be had; each woman has to define it for herself. It can be the freedom to believe that a woman can be as good a figher pilot as a man; or the freedom to believe that a woman can't. I can't help feeling betrayed by this latter belief. But I don't want either for all women to agree on all things and stick together in their convictions like frightened sheep. There's a place for sisterhood; and there's a place for dissent.
I have to remind myself over and over to check my definitions when I think about women and men's places in the world. I can say: yes, periods are a fact of my life. But I don't have to accept, like the beautiful red-haired woman, the definition that a woman having a period is a woman who cannot think clearly. After all, I get a lot of practice at this menstruation thing, and I learn every time how to cooperate with what's happening instead of fighting it. When my menstrual alter ego rears its pugnacious head, I say hello. I say, how are you. And then I go on with my business, a little flustered maybe, but still me.
I had to stop. I had to close my mouth. I had to remind myself that I'm not a violent person and that I don't believe in punching someone in the face. I said, "Okay." I said, although the words burnt my tongue as they came out, "Let me think about it."
It took me years to admit that my periods affect me emotionally and mentally. I get volatile; I eat when I'm not hungry; I don't feel like doing anything; the smallest glitch in how my day is supposed to be going makes me shut myself up in a dark room and turn into an irritable existentialist. I get nauseated in the Sartrean sense.
I don't want to be a fighter pilot. But just for argument's sake I wondered how I would do as a fighter pilot with pre-menstrual syndrome. Not well, I thought. Not well at all. I remembered how excited I was when the drug Seasonale was announced some time ago; it allows women to have only four periods every year. I didn't know the details but it sounded pretty extraordinary. I felt another revolution in the making, like the one brought about by the birth-control pill.
But something disturbs me about all this: it's that so much of our lives are controled by biology, that our minds have to fight our bodies in order for us (I mean women) to make progress in the world, to be truly free in it. A fallacy lurks here, though. There isn't only one kind of freedom to be had; each woman has to define it for herself. It can be the freedom to believe that a woman can be as good a figher pilot as a man; or the freedom to believe that a woman can't. I can't help feeling betrayed by this latter belief. But I don't want either for all women to agree on all things and stick together in their convictions like frightened sheep. There's a place for sisterhood; and there's a place for dissent.
I have to remind myself over and over to check my definitions when I think about women and men's places in the world. I can say: yes, periods are a fact of my life. But I don't have to accept, like the beautiful red-haired woman, the definition that a woman having a period is a woman who cannot think clearly. After all, I get a lot of practice at this menstruation thing, and I learn every time how to cooperate with what's happening instead of fighting it. When my menstrual alter ego rears its pugnacious head, I say hello. I say, how are you. And then I go on with my business, a little flustered maybe, but still me.
posted by Green Whale | 3:26 PM
2 Comments:
This is such a frustrating situation. It's nice to have acknowledgement for what we endure each month (it's the mood swings I'm most concerned with; I could go forever without mentioning the unpleasant physical symptoms), but I don't want the world to hold it against me, and say that it makes me less capable.
I love the idea of saying "hello." In many ways I savor the wildness of the hormonal trip. I try to be grateful for my own complexities. Having a period requires a lot of self-talk, I guess. Lots of checking in, lots of encouragement. And, like you, after doing it for 24 years now, I'm better at it, but it's still a work in progress.
Ah, being grateful for one's complexities (a wonderful expression) -- what enormously hard work. I get frustrated that so much in our lives has to be a work in progress -- why can't perfection exist, damn it -- but...sigh...it is what it is.
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